A few years ago it was quite on the cards that "Etienne Marcel" should be performed at Covent Garden, with Mme. Patti in the principal character. The great _prima donna_ had taken a strong fancy to the music, and expressed a desire to sing it. Unfortunately circumstances occurred which induced the _diva_ to change her mind, and to display her vocalisation in an opera of little musical worth, which has long since disappeared from the _répertoire_. If would be a thousand pities if an opera containing so much that is excellent should be allowed to suffer perpetual neglect, and it may be hoped that some day we may be afforded the chance of hearing it in England. The great moment in the dramatic career of Saint-Saëns was now at hand--that psychological moment so long desired and eagerly anticipated by every French aspirant to operatic fame. The doors of the Opera, that _sanctum sanctorum_, was at length to be opened to him. After the comparative failure of such works as Gounod's "Tribut de Zamora," and Ambroise Thomas' "Françoise de Rimini," the prestige of the French school wanted looking after, and some fresh blood was required to renew it. That a composer such as Saint-Saëns should be obliged to go to Weimar and Lyons in order to get played seemed an anomaly, and the author of "Samson et Dalila" was at last, and not too soon, commissioned to write a work for the leading operatic stage of Paris. Great expectations had been formed concerning the opera that so consummate a musician, and one holding such high artistic notions, would produce. It was held that a composer so well endowed would prove to be the one, _par excellence_, destined to free the French operatic stage from the bondage of "routine," and be the standard-bearer of French progressive art. These anticipations were destined to be only partly realised. Leaving French history for the nonce, Saint-Saëns found in the life of our much-married monarch a subject congenial to his muse, and "Henri VIII." was produced with success in March 1883. If this opera is ever to be performed in England certain alterations will have to be made, as the inclusion of a Scotch ballet danced at Richmond might tend to ridicule.